Teaching Resource

In 1969 Thomas Baker conducted an interview with Roy Wilkins, executive directory of the NAACP, based on Wilkins’s experiences with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. This abridged version of the interview enlightens students about Lyndon Johnson in particular about his relationship with Roy Wilkins and his efforts to address (or not address) issues during the Civil Rights Movement. Students will be able to collectively analyze this document and evaluate the degree to which Johnson was involved...

Teaching Resource

What conditions created the need for a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, and what did that march achieve?

Background

Throughout American history, African Americans have struggled to gain basic civil rights, such as the right to vote. When marchers gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, to demand voting rights, the nation was forced to acknowledge the depth and breadth of racial discrimination and bigotry that existed in the...

Teaching Resource

A brief biography of President John F. Kennedy and an analysis of his Inaugural Address give students exposure to the thirty-fifth President of the United States, his perspective on the role of the United States as a contributor to global affairs, and US citizens’ responsibility to serve their country. This study of JFK’s Inaugural Address goes beyond analysis of familiar quotations and explores the entire content of the address, including the structure, and ends with an examination of the speech in the context of events of the day. This series of lessons might be used during a study of American presidents, influential Americans, the Civil Rights Movement, etc., and can be used in English language arts as a model for student writing.

This document will be used to demonstrate the response of the federal government to citizen activism. The document is President Kennedy’s response to the Birmingham and University of Alabama situation. In this document,...

Teaching Resource

This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical and literary significance. Through a step-by-step process, students will acquire the skills to analyze any primary or secondary source material.

Overview

Over the course of four lessons the students will explore humanity’s quest to travel to the moon. They will analyze and write about...

Teaching Resource

President Lyndon Johnson announced his Great Society program during his State of the Union address in 1964. He outlined a series of domestic programs that he promised would eliminate poverty and inequality in the United States. By the end of Johnson’s term, Congress had implemented 226 of 252 his legislative requests.

Year
Legislation
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Teaching Resource

The Cold War is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following the Second World War. It was a series of confrontations played out on the world stage between the non-Communist states, led by the United States and Great Britain, and the Communists, led by the Soviet Union. In 1946 the former prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, gave a speech in Missouri foreshadowing the divide between East and West using the metaphor of an “iron curtain.” The reality of this...